2026 News Archive

The policy aims to greatly increase the number of spacecraft launches and re-entries.

Chester zoo resident, 23, ‘back to her usual feisty self’ after electrochemotherapy for tumour in her jaw A 15ft (4.5-metre) python is believed to be the first snake in the world to be given a pioneering, life-saving cancer treatment normally used on humans. The 50kg reticulated python, named Jodie Foster after the Hollywood star, has just turned 23 and lives at Chester zoo. Keepers first became concerned that she may be unwell when she began eating less and spending more time inactive in her habitat...

In August, the government told the Lok Sabha that the ethanol blending programme had helped save around ₹2 lakh crore in foreign exchange. However, Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, have launched campaigns against E20, saying it harms vehicles and that the government is forcing it on people

Harry and Meghan enjoyed some showbusiness success, but their Hollywood reign proved short-lived.

The 'unacceptable' E1 plan carries 'legal and reputational consequences' for those participating, European nations warn.

The body of Lily Hooper, 18, has been airlifted from a national park in the Southern Highlands following an eight-day search.

The collection documents key moments in Gandhi’s freedom movement as well as his personal relationship with close aide.

Sources close to the Sussexes have not denied reports that Meghan has been offered an acting role in the UK.

Cyclist Josh Tarling will ride in a Spainish event just eight days after his younger brother Finlay died when he was hit by a car during the Volta a Portugal.

Separate deals worth a combined £160m Summer spending on De Zerbi’s squad nears £400m Manchester City are close to agreeing the transfer of Savinho to Tottenham for £85m, with a separate deal of around £75m for the arrival of Omar Marmoush from the FA Cup-winners to the north London club also being worked on. Savinho signed for the City Football Group in summer 2022 for 40m euros (£30.8m), first joining Troyes, so the prospective sale of the 22-year-old for £85m represents a near £55m profit for City’s owners. After loans at PSV and Girona, the Brazilian joined City two years ago but the winger failed to establish himself as a first-choice under Pep Guardiola, the former manager...

‘Unprecedented’ weather pattern over Pacific Ocean to be felt worldwide with severe droughts expected in southern hemisphere The El Niño event developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest for more than a 100 years, the UK’s Met Office has said. Increased rainfall and storms are forecast to hit the UK this autumn as a result of the “unprecedented” weather pattern, which will also cause severe droughts in the southern hemisphere, the Met Office warned...

Ex-Australia batter Hussey said he was informally approached by Stephen Flemming, England's new red-ball coach.

Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian home while a mother and her children were sleeping inside.

Chancellor John Healey said the government is 'committed to meeting our fiscal rules'

Social media fosters empathy and awareness, but cannot replace evidence-based treatment or formal psychological care.

Thirty "pioneer families" have arrived on a wave of nationalism driven by Israel's government, but the rapid change has left nearby Palestinian residents fearful.

The SHANTI Act opens the civil nuclear sector in India to private companies and joint ventures, allowing them to build, own and operate nuclear plants, decommission them, and take up nuclear research and development

Philharmonia Orchestra/Dudamel (Decca) There’s a cinematic flourish to many of Hopkins’ compositions, together with fine arrangements of Welsh tunes and pieces dedicated to family Anthony Hopkins has, it turns out, has been composing music all his life. Now, at the age of 88, the Welsh-born Hollywood actor makes his Decca debut, securing the services of LA Philharmonic’s outgoing music director Gustavo Dudamel to bring his music to life. So, what does an Oscar winner sound like? Not surprisingly, there’s a significant cinematic influence, inspired by the music that caught the attention of a lad growing up in Margam, a suburb of Port Talbot. The opening Fanfare and March is a catchy, Technicolor splash, like everything here harmonious and written from the heart. Ditto the Khachaturian-flavoured Two Pieces for Orchestra. Welsh roots are honoured too: My Fatherland, featuring six traditional tunes, four sung in Welsh, would not seem out of place at the Last Night of the Proms...

Norway’s world No 1 outclassed the field and won the $250,000 first prize at the four-day event in France Magnus Carlsen, Norway’s world No 1, triumphed again last weekend when he won the 2026 Esports World Cup, staged over four days at the prestigious venue of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Carlsen retained his title from Riyadh 2025 and took home a monster first prize of $250,000 (£183,000). The time limit was close to blitz, 10 minutes each per player with no per move increment, a format where blunders would be hoped for, and were indeed made, as entertainment for the capacity audience...

A crackdown on time wasting, a record number of new people in charge, and some new faces on Match of the Day The 2026-27 Premier League season kicks off on Friday and while the familiar rivalries return, the English top flight has some alterations this campaign. From evolved rules to new faces and broadcast changes, there is plenty to catch up on before a ball is kicked. Marco Rose – Bournemouth Xabi Alonso – Chelsea Pierre Sage – Crystal Palace Álvaro Arbeloa – Fulham Gary O’Neil - Ipswich Town Andoni Iraola – Liverpool Enzo Maresca- Manchester City Matthias Jaissle – Newcastle Oliver Glasner – Nottingham Forest..

British YouTuber and rapper Yung Filly will face a retrial on allegations he raped a woman in Australia almost two years ago.

Court to rule on whether five activists accused of vandalising a Barclays bank will face terrorism sentencing.

Eight others were injured, local police say, with the cause of the fire still being investigated.

The crucial waterway's operator says low rainfall caused by the ocean pattern had led to the decision.

The latest floods to hit Metro Manila and parts of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon have turned a familiar seasonal disaster into a renewed test of political accountability for President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, as anger over allegedly corrupt flood-control projects returns to the centre of public debate. Analysts said the deluge had sharpened scrutiny of the slow-moving investigation into allegedly substandard and non-existent flood-control works, exposing the gap between Marcos’...

Rolling coverage of the latest events in global financial markets, the economy and major corporate moves Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. Retail sales fell in July after a bumper period the previous month, despite the World Cup luring punters into pubs and the hot weather boosting alcoholic drink sales in supermarkets. 7am BST: ONS retail sales data 7am BST: ONS public finances 9am BST: Flash PMI eurozone 9.30am BST: UK flash PMI 2.45pm BST: US flash PMI..

July data shows total public debt was £2.98tn, or 94% of GDP – up £96bn on a year earlier The UK government ran a larger than expected £1.8bn deficit in July, underlining the challenges facing the chancellor, John Healey, as he draws up his first budget. City economists had expected a shortfall of zero for July, a month when Treasury receipts tend to be swollen by self-assessment income tax payments...

3% hike offer is inadequate to compensate for the prevailing inflation, says APJUDA, adding that it has been assured of another round of talks

On Great Nicobar Island, local Nicobarese communities are already opposing the Union government’s ₹91,000 crore mega-infrastructure project that involves building an airport, a transshipment port, and a tourism-led township

A teasing tale of the friendship between a writer and an actor explores the fallout from fame, and the blurring between pretence and reality M is a celebrated film actor. A star since childhood, now the face of a major fashion brand, she has been famous all her life. That her career closely resembles Natalie Portman’s has been gleefully seized upon by the press, something Rachel Cusk must surely have anticipated: in the novel, M’s first film has its sex scenes cut at her mother’s insistence, as happened with Portman’s 1994 debut Leon, while her ballerina movie is recognisably Black Swan. M is also, in the words of the nameless and genderless narrator of Life of M, “a good sport”. When the narrator suggests writing M’s autobiography, M likes the idea. “Would you just make it up?” she asks. A celebrity autobiography is seldom the work of the celebrity herself. And yet any suggestion that the narrator will serve as a kind of ghostwriter to M is dispensed with in a few pages. The pair meet for coffee at a luxury hotel and, after the narrator’s partner falls suddenly and seriously ill, for lunch in a restaurant. The lunch is unsatisfactory, an attempt at intimacy that the narrator acknowledges afterwards to have been a mistake. Though M is determined to live as normal a life as possible (“her personal task is to become real, or rather to acquire some reality”), the narrator is uncomfortably aware of their own falseness with M: “It was as if I was acting, while M came across as authentic and real. It was as if she was the only one good enough at acting to attain reality.” After that the two of them do not see one another again “for a long time”...

In total, 308 people were freed in what the government called the largest single-day rescue operation. But at the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital in Ilorin, a long road to recovery lay ahead

The State government was informed of the denial of permission for the U.S. visit after the official delegation had already reached the U.K.

Growing evidence that cutting coal use and bans on high-polluting vehicles are leading directly to health benefits Failing crops, wildfires and overloaded health systems are focusing minds on the local impacts of our changing climate. While carbon emissions reduction is normally framed as having a global benefit rather than a local gain, studies published in 2025 and 2026 from Greece have added to growing evidence that cutting coal use and air pollution can provide immediate health benefits to local communities...

From a new high-speed line to better intercity links, the PM has a chance to tackle problems he criticised as Manchester mayor For passenger rail travel, the north of England was the future, once. But since that first train from Darlington to Stockton in 1825, many have felt short-changed. As one angry passenger put it, 200 years later: “What is it about the rail industry which makes them think they can treat passengers in the north as second-class citizens?” That complaint came from the former mayor of Greater Manchester, who frequently set out a different vision for the train services he would like. Now that Andy Burnham is in No 10, he has the opportunity to win those battles – or perhaps see them a little differently. For now, what unresolved issues could the railway expect to be pursued with greater urgency?..

Further restrictions on shipping lane possible as Central America gripped by severe drought The Panama canal will cut the number of ships passing through it starting next month because of drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon, the operator of the strategic waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific said Thursday. From 3 September, the number of vessels allowed through each day will fall from 36 to 34 due to low water levels in two artificial lakes that feed the canal, the Panama Canal Authority said. From 15 September, the number of ships permitted will drop to 32...

Value of banknotes in circulation rises from €1bn in 2016 to €1.6bn in 2026 as people advised to keep stash of cash The number of banknotes in circulation in the EU is increasing despite widespread smartphone payments, new data shows, with wildfires ripping through parts of Europe fuelling demand for an emergency stash of cash. While cash plays second fiddle to contactless payments in many cities across Europe, the amount in circulation is actually going up, Philip Lane, the chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), said at the MacGill summer school conference in Ireland...

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell sharply on Thursday, with just seven commodity vessels crossing the vital waterway, as heightened security risks and stalled US-Iran peace talks deterred ships from using the key energy route. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.

Mother of Billy Caldwell, who has severe epilepsy, celebrates son’s story while pushing for better access to prescription cannabis for families who need it When Billy Caldwell was a baby he was not expected to survive infancy. A severe form of epilepsy condemned his tiny body to daily seizures – brutal, draining and each one potentially fatal. “They couldn’t get the seizures under control,” his mother, Charlotte, recalled. “Billy was sent home to die – we were told he wouldn’t see past his first birthday.” That prediction was in 2005. Last month Billy, who is autistic, celebrated his 21st birthday at home in a bucolic corner of Northern Ireland with family, friends, cake and a wide smile...

Decade-long study finds stark gender difference in outcomes of people with heart disease Millions of men with heart disease have a higher risk of developing and dying from cancer, according to a decades-long study. The biggest drivers behind male cases were smoking, obesity and drinking too much alcohol, researchers said, with the link most pronounced in lung and oesophageal cancers...

Pacific fleet launched missile drills near what Moscow calls the Kuril Islands but Japan regards as its Northern Territories Japan has criticised missile tests carried out by Russia’s navy around the disputed islands visited by Vladimir Putin last week amid continuing tensions between the two countries. Russia’s Pacific fleet said on Thursday that it had fired Bastion surface-to-ship missiles from Etorofu, the largest island in the disputed archipelago, simulating an attack on enemy vessels, hitting all of its targets approximately 300km away...

Footage circulating on social media shows dozens of migrants arriving by boat on Spain’s southeastern coast.

While the Taliban have retained power, a weak economy, suffocating restrictions on women, international isolation and growing tensions with Pakistan remain key challenges; widespread poverty, unemployment and dependence on humanitarian assistance are the reality for millions

The majority held that ‘industry’ under the IRC must be interpreted based on its own specific text and statutory context, unburdened by the legacy of the 1978 precedent; Chief Justice Kant noted that while the core principles of the 1978 ruling had stood the test of time, the 1978 judgment would no longer act as the “sheet anchor” for interpreting ‘industry’ under the IRC

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was sent back to prison after being transferred for a medical evaluation.

Despite stars Leslie Mann, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher and the writers behind The Hangover, this tale of friends at a luxury hotel is a dud Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are the screenwriters who struck gold nearly 20 years ago with The Hangover, a brilliant stag-weekend nightmare comedy about what happens in Vegas, which sadly spawned a terrible (though lucrative) franchise. Now, as writers and directors, they have tried turning it around and making a movie about how middle-aged women behave on a longed-for spa weekend at a luxury-porn hotel. The result is a comedy without gags, a comedy which, for all the strenuous high-jinks, is afraid to be flippant or mean or, indeed, funny in any way. Leslie Mann plays a hotshot lawyer called Jane who can’t make room in her life for romance; Anna Faris is goofy Sophie, PA to a rich asshole; Michelle Buteau is outspoken badass Coco, angry at her ex-husband dating again; and Isla Fisher is landed with the stridently unfunny role of Mel, a wild child who makes the other three nervous, but whose life-affirming no-filter honesty is going to break everyone’s emotional logjam and sort out their lives. As for Jane, it looks as if the hotel’s super-hot super-sensitive yoga teacher, Kai (Adam Demos), is going to hook up with her...

As his new film Bitter Christmas is released, the legendary Spanish director turns his fire on Donald Trump, Will Smith, Netflix – and himself Black sunglasses indoors and a tufty cloud of cotton-wool hair: it can only be Pedro Almodóvar, bourgeois arthouse darling nonpareil and master of everything from screwball romps (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) to clammy thrillers (Live Flesh, The Skin I Live In) – and sumptuous melodramas such as his 24th film, Bitter Christmas, a cautionary tale about the perils of autofiction. We are sitting in the library of a London hotel and Almodóvar is dressed in a thin black windcheater, grey trousers and white trainers; add a whistle on a string and he could pass for a PE teacher. The 76-year-old director may have won more than 60 awards including two Oscars, five Baftas and six Goyas but when the shades come off today, he looks momentarily sorry for himself. He has been deaf in one ear since childhood, he tells me, and now the other one is giving up the ghost. In addition, a nasty stye has turned his left eye a gluey purple. Might he have picked it up while swimming? “I do swim almost every day because I have a pool,” he sighs. Never can those words have sounded so sorrowful...

The new government of Peter Magyar hoped to use the suite overlooking the Danube as evidence of an autocrat’s indulgence. The trappings fell short.

Traverse theatre, Edinburgh Malaika Kegode delivers a supernatural story about the strange disappearance of a maudlin folk singer Playwright and performer Malaika Kegode tops and tails this show for Theatre Royal Plymouth with a message about the allure of storytelling. In a festival city bursting at the seams with stories, it is an unnecessary observation. A more important question is about which stories we choose to tell, which resonate and which pass us by. Why, for example, did Kegode want to write a story – and it is a story rather than a play – about the strange disappearance of a maudlin folk singer? She focuses on the subsequent investigation by Meles Costas, an under-qualified true-crime podcaster, living in the shadow of a high-achieving and terminally ill mother. And she laces her story with gothic fairytale imagery: folk songs with dark-magic properties, human-to-animal transmutation and a hint of witchcraft. At Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, until 30 August; Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2–5 September; Bristol Old Vic, 8–12 September All our Edinburgh festival reviews..

Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, authorities said. It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025. Sunao Takami, the man executed on Friday, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine using small steel balls – near his home in Osaka with petrol and set it on fire, killing four...

Iran calls new U.S. sanctions ‘economic terrorism’, ‘crimes against humanity’

The United States on Thursday urged allies and China to join its campaign to isolate Iran's economy, as President Donald Trump seeks to intensify pressure on Tehran amid a stalemate in the war and growing domestic criticism.

U.S. warned allies and China to join Mr. Trump’s new campaign to isolate the Iranian economy, vowing that Washington would “collapse this regime” in Tehran.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung - leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance – were tried under under a 2020 national security law Two Hong Kong activists who organised annual vigils marking China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 were found guilty of “incitement to subversion”, in a case widely criticised as exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the Chinese city. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41 “incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power”, a press summary handed out to reporters said...

Three activists were accused of inciting others to subvert state power under the China-introduced law.

Three projects mark a new test for Egypt after it failed to prevent construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

An international socialist institute and Cuba's construction ministry are subject to the latest US sanctions, Marco Rubio announces.

The government has announced investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2m) to bolster its AI ecosystem.

Tunisia has seen an uptick in protests as economic conditions in the country have deteriorated.

The El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to increase the likelihood of drought and excess heat across the region.

The two men, detained in the western city of Herat on August 9, were released on Thursday morning.